Reflections on Challenger 246
Adam Attarian writes "CNN's Miles O'Brien (no relation to the dude on Star Trek) has an excellent column on NASA's reflection of the Challenger explosion 15 years ago, and how they are guarding against "go-fever" as much as possible. The article also talks about how detailed and precise NASA engineers are now, and how mathmatical statistics mean hardly anything anymore. This is an excellent read. Hopefully Dubya won't cut NASA's budget more than it all ready has. Those guys are all ready pretty much running on fumes."
In memory... we ought to EXPAND the space program! (Score:1)
I mean, if we could make it to the moon in 1969 with the equivalent power of three Commodore 64s, just think how easy it will be today. And don't give me that "we no longer have the tech to reach the moon". That's bullshit. I don't know where people come off with that one.
NASA's state of affairs (Score:1)
I post for content not karma...
GHEBotWIfSRaD
Duh (Score:2)
Give the money to NASA and keep it out of the hands of Lott and his group of Republican white-collar crooks. They make Richard Nixon look like a choirboy in comparison.
Exploration is Risky (Score:2)
NASA is being set up to fail. If everything goes right then we cut their budget because no one cares anymore. If things go wrong and people die (or even if missions fail) then we cut their budget because it's too risky. End result: we cut their budget.
Why? Because NASA's defenders are, to put it bluntly, politically naive. They're engineers and scientists, and how you win an argument with an engineer or scientist is you get your facts and logic right. When presented with the facts and logic, the scientist or engineer goes "Oh- you're right."
Well, we're not dealing with scientists or engineers here, we're dealing with politicians. And I'm not sure how many people may have noticed, but neither facts nor logic have much weight in political debate. What counts is money and votes.
The first time a congress criter looses his seat in whole or in part because he voted against funding for NASA, and thus the pro-NASA forces contributed large amounts of money to and voted for his opponent- then, and ONLY then, will NASA get the budget it deserves.
budget and "dubya" (Score:2)
Re:budget and "dubya" (Score:2)
Re:budget and "dubya" (Score:2)
It's not so much as "benefit of the doubt," but that it's the type of funding that would appeal to him. Space reasearch is "push" technology, creating spinoffs, which seems to fit in with his ideology.
I'm not willing to assume anything about him just because he's a republican; that's more than slightly bigotted . . .
hawk
Lack of criminalilty seems to be the difference (Score:3)
Launching under those terms was criminally neglicent, and should have been prosecuted as either mansalughter or (insert local name for "criminally negligent homicide" here).
It wasn't a technical failure, any more than it's a design problem that kills you when you slam your car into a brick wall at 100mph.
Re:NASA Budget (Score:3)
Uhh, that you can spend the other super power out of existence like that?
The USSR didn't just fall down; it was pushed. It would have happened
in another 30-50 years anyway, but responding to the Reagan buildup
finished them offf. Gorbachev wouldn't have had to gamble (and lose)
with glasnost and perestroika (sp?) without the pressure that trying
to keep up placed on their system.
>To me, a missile defense system like star wars suffers many of
>the same problems as pr0n filters. Sure, they can catch titties, but
>they also catch baby's butts, or a picture of somone's tattoo, or a
>tan sofa...
I'm not *to* worried about shooting down sofas lobbed into ballistic
trajectories . . .
>These missile detectors don't know the difference between
>a missile and a weather balloon.
The velocity is a *wee* bit different.
>Much less a missile and an identical
>decoy missile coming from the same vacinity.e
This misunderstands the nature of the defense. The system (and this
applies specifically to the old USSR, but also to others) doesn't
need to be 100%, but rather enough to interfere with the attack.
Aside from Russia, there's noone who could launch enough decoys
anyway.
hawk
Re:NASA Budget (Score:2)
Every employee of NASA does not work on how to send rockets into space. Based on 4 years of interning at NASA Lewis (now Glenn) in Cleveland, I would say that there, only about 20% of the staff was working directly on technology for space-bound missions. The rest were doing the 'A' thing , aeronautics. I was particularly involved with materials research where they were trying to make materials with better stress handling. If we could do that, not only would it help design lighter and better planes, but could easily filter down into more commonplace vehicles. It may not be a direct link, but the possibility is there.
And don't underestimate the value of extra-terrestial research. We as mankind seriously need to think about getting off the rock known as Earth within the next 200 to 500 years, not only for expected population growth but to avoid having all of our eggs in one basket should there be a cosmic-scale disaster. Maybe we should be pushing NASA to work more with other worldwide space programs to create joint ventures to do this, but it's got to happen.
And finally, remember that the millions of dollars that NASA might get in a year is about the same cost for ONE of our best stealth planes. Which, after all is said and done, is going to be of the most value to the general populace? I'd think it would be NASA research which can have a beneficial effect on society.
Re:NASA Budget (Score:2)
NASA also runs a major aviation safty reporting program.
The cure of the ills of Democracy is more Democracy.
Re:Down with NASA (Score:2)
Or, possibly, that we got too cocky, too soon. We can shoot a few people up into the sky on a big pile of explosives, but do we really have what it takes to go into space? deep into space - where truly interesting things can be done, like colonization, expansion? Hell no - and I think that despite the HUGE wave of ratty antiscientific science fiction propaganda that has been squeezed out of hollywood, we're finally starting to realize that we're probably hundreds of years away from having the technology to do anything really useful with space (unless the global political climate shifts, (ABM) and we're forced into another pissing contest (with PRC)).
Yes, it's sad, and back in the 1970's and 1980's, it really looked like we were rollin'. But look at NASA's advanced propulsion physics page. We're talking hundreds, if not thousands of years.
Re:I'm sure there'll be a lot of posts like mine (Score:2)
I was certain, when I was told, that it was a joke. My "gang" was all pretty used to sick humor, no holes barred. We were pretty desensitized. Someone would say just about anything to "get" someone else. So it was, in my mind, not outside the realm of possibility that Chuck was making a sick joke. But it was outside the realm of taste, in my mind. I made a comment, and we went down to the library to watch. Not a joke.
Deep inside, I was kind of relieved. Kind of happy. I had been thinking that I was majorly dissatisfied with the progress of the US Space program. We should have had daily launches by then. We should have had hundreds of shuttles. 2000 was approaching, where was my flying car?
I thought - damn, NOW people will start taking this space stuff seriously. NOW NASA will get some decent funding to make sure things get done right. This was just akin to Henry Ford losing his best friend in an accident during testing of the Model T prototype. We'll buckle down, we'll redouble our efforts, improve our design, set our commitment, and dammit, we'll make space our bitch.
I mean, tradgedy, in one sense. True. 7 people died. In the time it took for me to type this message, a lot more than 7 people in this world have died, starvation, war, disease, car accidents, Pokemon episodes. Death happens. See what I mean about being desensitiezed? Space is a dangerous thing. Life is a dangerous thing. You sit on a thousand tons of liquid hydrogen, you better damn well understand that you could die. Hell, I could have a brain hemmorage and die this instant, before I even get to hit the submit button. Wasting all this effort to type - so I can contribute to the lameness that is Slashdot. Those astronauts were attempting something noble. Maybe not on par with the Apollo or Mercury astronauts - but they weren't sitting on their asses like I'm doing now. But they knew the risks. Their families knew the risks. The managers knew the risks. Congress knew the risks. And you and I, when we send off our tax returns to the IRS to fund these things, know the risks. Let's get over the crybaby shit, and start sending more of these motherfuckers up there already!
Re:Multiple Choice Test. (Score:2)
You get out into the REAL world, and THEN you grow up.
Do you want to be thought of as "the race who lives in their parents' basement" for the rest of cosmic eternity?
Re:Multiple Choice Test. (Score:2)
Re: Russian record (Score:2)
For stories that are recurring topics, a page with links to all the previous stories on this topic. (reposts too), and links provided by commentators containing relevant information.
I know that the last time this came up, somebody linked a great article on how some guy was going to write a book about deceased russian astronaut rumors, and he worked on it for 10 years, gathering information, researching, and found out that the guy had been drummed-out for insubordination or something like that, and sent back to his fighter squadron in Siberia, and the Soviet government covered it up - and the cover up was what made people think that the guy died in the line of duty.
Re:This is the (Score:2)
must shut off the tv and concentrate on homework."
Obviously, you have zero parenting experience. because this is how it works:
"man, mom and dad are lame, fuck ice cream, fuck them, fuck homework - that'll show them. When i'm 18, I'll get all the ice cream I fucking want."
Proof? (Score:1)
The more things change... (Score:1)
For example: There's a big push from the top to do QRA (Quantitative Reliability Analysis). HELLO! Why weren't they doing that already?! The answer is that they were doing it before the days of the Challenger and then stopped because they didn't like the numbers they were getting. So they started playing voodoo statistics to estimate their reliabilities. (I remember Feynman saying that their supposed reliability would mean something like a launch a day for a millenium without serious failure.)
Another example: I heard of a project in which millions of $$ were spent to estimate the unreliability of a system. Then someone else did it for a hundredth the price and exposed errors in the original project's analysis. Instead of getting a pat on the back, and fixing the problem, then NASA culture would rather hush-hush the situation because it would show that the original project wasted millions of dollars. Sigh.
Don't get me wrong. There are groups within NASA that are top notch. (The shuttle control software development team comes to mind.) However, NASA is a huge organization with huge bureaucracy, huge politics, and huge inefficiencies.- ----------------------
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Re:NASA Budget (Score:1)
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Re:NASA Budget (Score:1)
The wheel is turning but the hamster is dead.
Re:Odds... (Score:2)
I think Kimble has it right (at least that's the same answer I got, for whatever that's worth). It's just worded confusingly because there are two kinds of "failure" here: single-wire failures, which are scary but harmless individually because of the backups, and system failures, which make the ship explode. Each line gives the chances of that wire failure not causing a system failure.
Say you're going to select four wires to cut randomly and want to compute the chances of any two of them being from the same pair, i.e., being each other's backup, i.e., ruining everyone's day. This is all assuming that four is the number of wires that will have deteriorated, which I guess is based on the observation that that is how many had deteriorated in the other ship under whatever conditions caused it. You could also do this for more values and take a weighted sum based on a pretty safe assumption of the distribution of that number (the Laws of Large Numbers kick in way before 6000) and get a pretty similar result. Anyway:
There are 6056 out of 6056 ways to choose the first wire safely, because it's the first one, so its backup must still be okay.
There are 6054 out of 6055 ways to choose the second wire safely, because there are 6055 left and one of them has no backup.
There are 6052 out of 6054 ways to choose the third wire safely, because, assuming you get this far, there are 6054 left and two have no backup.
There are 6050 out of 6053 ways to choose the fourth wire safely, because, assuming you get this far, there are 6053 left and three have no backup.
Multiplying these all together gives the chances of making it through all four without hitting both of any pair. Cancelling the 6056es and 6054s, I get 36614600/36650915 =~ 0.99901. (Ironically enough, I also used my Pilot, proving that it wasn't the writer's Pilot that failed him, just his math skills) Anyway, one minus that makes about one chance in a thousand of bad news, which is still pretty good, but not as good as some others have said, and probably not as good as you would hope for.
David Gould
Re:I'm sure there'll be a lot of posts like mine (Score:2)
Considering the amount of NASA work in Houston... (Score:2)
Other than that Mrs. Kennedy how was the motorcade (Score:2)
Dubya and NASA funding (Score:1)
Stuart Eichert
Bzzt! Sorry, you're wrong. (Score:5)
"Tons" of radioactive material? Cassini carries 3 RTGs (total of 33 kg of plutonium dioxide) and several smaller radioisotope heater units (33.6 CI of fuel and 1.4 oz total weight PER unit). Ref: RTGs [nasa.gov] and heaters [nasa.gov]. So there's approximately 72 pounds (for the metric-challenged) of PU-238 onboard. A "metric ton" is 2200 pounds. Methinks you are off by a factor of at least 30. (60 if you really meant "tons")
The RTGs are *DESIGNED* to prevent releasing the fuel into the environment. You can question the adequacy of the design and invent scenarios where it fails but you CANNOT state that the engineers at JPL, NASA, and various contractors are not taking the risk seriously.
Next, we DO NOT know our solar system. The discovery of active vulcanism on Io, potenital for water ice and liquid water on Europa, and questions about the atmosphere on Titan are relatively recent and the result of sending space probes to Jupiter and Saturn. Data on *ALL* the planets remain sketchy. This same information helps us develop an understanding of planetrary geology and meterology that applies to understanding Earth's environment as well (a good theory should accomodate observations on more than just one planet).
Heck, we don't understand the planet we live on that well. Ever hear of Earth Observation System (EOS)? Where do you think data on global climate changes, upper atmosphere properties (ozone depletion at the poles), or some of the observations of the Pacific and Atlantic thermal osciliations come from? NASA operates ALL those programs.
The *only* mission categories that are economically viable today are communications satellites, earth observation, maybe remote imaging (commercial "spy sats"), maybe weather. Government (DoD, NASA, NOAA in the US) has to fund everything else and did much of the work to make the rest possible. As much as we'd like it, private industry has not raised the capital necessary to do it on its own (for many reasons, political, economic, and technical).
Finally, we don't know WHEN humanity will NEED a real space capability. We CAN afford the research now. It's foolish on several levels to not do it.
The traditional argument over the NASA budget has been about the manned spaceflight program. Which has been a political beast since its inception.
And while I am not employed as a "rocket scientist" today, I studied to be one (aero astro engineering major) and can tell you EXACTLY where I was for most of the Mercury and Gemini launches, the Apollo flights, Shuttle 1st flight, and yes, Challenger.
Re:I'm sure there'll be a lot of posts like mine (Score:2)
I know what you mean, dude. It still chills me just to hear the radio call "Roger, GO at throttle-up". You can still hear that call every mission, and it just makes my heart catch in my throat. And when those boosters separate at around T+2:00, around here we say "good riddance".
About the explosion: technically, there was none. The vehical was torn apart by dynamic forces due to massive structural failure of the ET. The large fireball you see in those old films is not an explosion, it's just the remaining fuel burning up following the destruction of the ET. That's what we were told at NASA training shortly after I started work here at USA.
--Jim
The real Challeng(er)... (Score:2)
I ask then 2 things. If you think NASA sucks, can you do any better? and on that same note, how about opening up the stranglehold NASA has on launchings? Let's commercalize the space program. Instead of sending a probe to that iron asteroid, let's go and mine the hell out of it.
Open it up. Let private groups and companies launch. Instead of making us drive out to the desert and abandon our launch platform and ground control equipment so we can be be miles away after launch so we dont get thrown in prison for scientific research. (Amateur rocketeers have made it really close, but we can't lay claim to anything that we try for fear of imprisionment.)
The space program could be the pinnacle of humanity. Only if we persue it un-hindered.
(BTW: where the hell is that moon base we were promised in the 60's?)
Not Titanium (Score:2)
Sidenote: it was meant to be called the RS-71, but Nixon reversed the letters when it was revealed to the public, so they stuck with SR-71.
2001 Odyssey Space Plane = Shuttle (Score:2)
However, until recently the shuttle didn't have
anywhere to go, except in circles.
Re: Challenger (Score:2)
Didn't you watch Apollo 13? Or are you saying it's a different generation?
ONLY 100,000 years? (Score:2)
Re:NASA is a wasteful boondoggle (Score:4)
(all shamelessly swiped from the 'net; do a google search on "benefits NASA"):
Computer Technology - NASA Spinoffs
GROUND PROCESSING SCHEDULING SYSTEM - Computer-based scheduling system that uses artificial intelligence to manage thousands of overlapping activities involved in launch preparations of NASA's Space Shuttles. The NASA technology was licensed to a new company which developed commercial applications that provide real-time planning and optimization of manufacturing operations, integrated supply chains, and customer orders.uu
SEMICONDUCTOR CUBING - NASA initiative led to the Memory Short StackÅ, a three-dimensional semiconductor package in which dozens of integrated circuits are stacked one atop another to form a cube, offering faster computer processing speeds, higher levels of integration, lower power requirements than conventional chip sets, and dramatic reduction in the size and weight of memory-intensive systems, such as medical imaging devices.
STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS - This NASA program, originally created for spacecraft design, has been employed in a broad array of non-aerospace applications, such as the automobile industry, manufacture of machine tools, and hardware designs.
WINDOWS VISUAL NEWS READER (Win Vn) - Software program developed to support payload technical documentation at Kennedy Space Center, allowing the exchange of technical information among a large group of users. WinVn is an enabling technology product that provides countless people with Internet access otherwise beyond their grasp, and it was optimized for organizations that have direct Internet access.
AIR QUALITY MONITOR - Utilizing a NASA-developed, advanced analytical technique software package, an air quality monitor system was created, capable of separating the various gases in bulk smokestack exhaust streams and determining the amount of individual gases present within the stream for compliance with smokestack emission standards.
VIRTUAL REALITY - NASA-developed research allows a user, with assistance from advanced technology devices, to figuratively project oneself into a computer-generated environment, matching the user's head motion, and, when coupled with a stereo viewing device and appropriate software, creates a telepresence experience.
Other spinoffs in this area include: Advanced keyboards, Customer Service Software, Database Management System, Laser Surveying, Aircraft controls, Lightweight Compact Disc, Expert System Software, Microcomputers, and Design Graphics.
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Consumer/Home/Recreation - NASA Spinoffs
ENRICHED BABY FOOD - A microalgae-based, vegetable-like oil called Formulaid developed from NASA-sponsored research on long duration space travel, contains two essential fatty acids found in human milk but not in most baby formulas, believed to be important for infants' mental and visual development.
WATER PURIFICATION SYSTEM - NASA-developed municipal-size water treatment system for developing nations, called the Regenerable Biocide Delivery Unit, uses iodine rather than chlorine to kill bacteria.
SCRATCH-RESISTANT LENSES - A modified version of a dual ion beam bonding process developed by NASA involves coating the lenses with a film of diamond-like carbon that not only provides scratch resistance, but also decreases surface friction, reducing water spots.
POOL PURIFICATION - Space technology designed to sterilize water on long-duration spacecraft applied to swimming pool purification led to a system that uses two silver-copper alloy electrodes that generate silver and copper ions when an electric current passes through them to kill bacteria and algae without chemicals.
RIBBED SWIMSUIT - NASA-developed riblets applied to competition swimsuits resulted in flume testing of 10 to 15 percent faster speeds than any other world class swim-suit due to the small, barely visible grooves that reduce friction and aerodynamic drag by modifying the turbulent airflow next to the skin.
GOLF BALL AERODYNAMICS - A recently designed golf ball, which has 500 dimples arranged in a pattern of 60 spherical triangles, employs NASA aerodynamics technology to create a more symmetrical ball surface, sustaining initial velocity longer and producing a more stable ball flight for better accuracy and distance.
PORTABLE COOLERS/WARMERS - Based on a NASA-inspired space cooling system employing thermoelectric technology, the portable cooler/warmer plugs into the cigarette lighters of autos, recreational vehicles, boats, or motel outlets. Utilizes one or two miniaturized modules delivering the cooling power of a 10-pound block of ice and the heating power of up to 125 degrees Fahrenheit.
SPORTS TRAINING - Space-developed cardio-muscular conditioner helps athletes increase muscular strength and cardiovascular fitness through kinetic exercise.
ATHLETIC SHOES - Moon Boot material encapsulated in running shoe midsoles improve shock absorption and provides superior stability and motion control.
Other spinoffs in this area include: Dustbuster, shock-absorbing helmets, home security systems, smoke detectors, flat panel televisions, high-density batteries, trash compactors, food packaging and freeze-dried technology, cool sportswear, sports bras, hair styling appliances, fogless ski goggles, self-adjusting sunglasses, composite golf clubs, hang gliders, art preservation, and quartz crystal timing equipment.
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Environmental and Resource Management - NASA Spinoffs
MICROSPHERES - The first commercial products manufactured in orbit are tiny microspheres whose precise dimensions permit their use as reference standards for extremely accurate calibration of instruments in research and industrial laboratories. They are sold for applications in environmental control, medical research, and manufacturing.
SOLAR ENERGY - NASA-pioneered photovoltaic power system for spacecraft applications was applied to programs to expand terrestrial applications as a viable alternative energy source in areas where no conventional power source exists.
WEATHER FORECASTING AID - Space Shuttle environmental control technology led to the development of the Barorator which continuously measures the atmospheric pressure and calculates the instantaneous rate of change.
FOREST MANAGEMENT - A NASA-initiated satellite scanning system monitors and maps forestation by detecting radiation reflected and emitted from trees.
SENSORS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL CONTROL - NASA development of an instrument for use in space life support research led to commercial development of a system to monitor an industrial process stream to assure that the effluent water's pH level is in compliance with environmental regulations.
WIND MONITOR - Development of Jimsphere wind measurement balloon for space launches allows for making high resolution measurements of the wind profile for meteorological studies and predictions.
TELEMETRY SYSTEMS - A spinoff company formed to commercialize NASA high-data-rate telemetry technology, manufactures a high-speed processing system for commercial communications applications.
PLANT RESEARCH - NASA research on future moon and Mars bases is investigating using plants for food, oxygen, and water to reduce the need for outside supplies. This research utilizes Hydroponics (liquid nutrient solutions) instead of soil to support plant growth and finds applications for vegetable production on Earth.
FIRE RESISTANT MATERIAL - Materials include chemically-treated fabric for sheets, uniforms for hazardous material handlers, crew's clothing, furniture, interior walls of submersibles and auto racer and refueler suits.
RADIATION INSULATION - Aluminized polymer film is highly effective radiation barrier for both manned and unmanned spacecraft. Variations of this space-devised material are also used as an energy conservation technique for homes and offices. The materials are placed between wall studs and exterior facing before siding or between roof support and roof sheathing. The radiant barrier blocks 95% of radiant energy. Successful retrofit installations include schools and shrink wrap ovens.
Other spinoffs in this area include: Whale identification method, environmental analysis, noise abatement, pollution measuring devices, pollution control devices, smokestack monitor, radioactive leak detector, earthquake prediction system, sewage treatment, energy saving air conditioning, and air purification.
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Health and Medicine - NASA Spinoffs
DIGITAL IMAGING BREAST BIOPSY SYSTEM - The LORAD Stereo Guide Breast Biopsy system incorporates advanced Charge Coupled Devices (CCDs) as part of a digital camera system. The resulting device images breast tissue more clearly and efficiently. Known as stereotactic large-core needle biopsy, this nonsurgical system developed with Space Telescope Technology is less traumatic and greatly reduces the pain, scarring, radiation exposure, time, and money associated with surgical biopsies.
BREAST CANCER DETECTION - A solar cell sensor is positioned directly beneath x-ray film, and determines exactly when film has received sufficient radiation and has been exposed to optimum density. Associated electronic equipment then sends a signal to cut off the x-ray source. Reduction of mammography x-ray exposure reduces radiation hazard and doubles the number of patient exams per machine.
LASER ANGIOPLASTY - Laser angioplasty with a "cool" type of laser, caller an excimer laser, does not damage blood vessel walls and offers precise non-surgical cleanings of clogged arteries with extraordinary precision and fewer complications than in balloon angioplasty.
ULTRASOUND SKIN DAMAGE ASSESSMENT - Advanced instrument using NASA ultrasound technology enables immediate assessment of burn damage depth, improving patient treatment, and may save lives in serious burn cases.
HUMAN TISSUE STIMULATOR - Employing NASA satellite technology, the device is implanted in the body to help patient control chronic pain and involuntary motion disorders through electrical stimulation of targeted nerve centers or particular areas of the brain.
COOL SUIT - Custom-made suit derived from space suits circulates coolant through tubes to lower patient's body/ temperature, producing dramatic improvement of symptoms of multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy, spina bifida and other conditions.
PROGRAMMABLE PACEMAKER - Incorporating multiple NASA technologies, the system consists of the implant and a physician's computer console containing the programming and a data printer. Communicates through wireless telemetry signals.
OCULAR SCREENING - NASA image processing techniques are used to detect eye problems in very young children. An electronic flash from a 35-millimeter camera sends light into the child's eyes, and a photorefractor analyzes the retinal reflexes, producing an image of each eye.
AUTOMATED URINALYSIS - NASA fluid dynamics studies helped development of system that automatically extracts and transfers sediment from urine sample to an analyzer microscope, replacing the manual centrifuge method.
MEDICAL GAS ANALYZER - Astronaut-monitoring technology used to develop system to monitor operating rooms for analysis of anesthetic gasses and measurement of oxygen, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen concentrations to assure proper breathing environment for surgery patients.
VOICE-CONTROLLED WHEELCHAIR - NASA teleoperator and robot technology used to develop chair and manipulator that respond to 35 one-word voice commands utilizing a minicomputer to help patient perform daily tasks, like picking up packages, opening doors, and turning on appliances.
Other spinoffs in this area include: Arteriosclerosis detection, ultrasound scanners, automatic insulin pump, portable x-ray device, invisible braces, dental arch wire, palate surgery technology, clean room apparel, implantable heart aid, MRI, bone analyzer, and cataract surgery tools.
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Industrial Productivity/Manufacturing Technology - NASA Spinoffs
MAGNETIC LIQUIDS - Based on the NASA-developed ferrofluid concept involving synthetic fluids that can be positioned and controlled by magnetic force, the ferrofluidic seal was initially applied in a zero-leakage, nonwearing seal for the rotating shaft of a system used to make semiconductor chips, solving a persistent problemãcontamination due to leaking seals.
WELDING SENSOR SYSTEM - Laser-based automated welder for industrial use incorporates a laser sensor system originally designed for Space Shuttle External Tank to track the seam where two pieces of metal are to be joined, measures gaps and minute misfits, and automatically corrects the welding torch distance and height.
MICROLASERS - Based on a concept for optical communications over interplanetary distances, microlasers were developed for the commercial market to transmit communication signals and to drill, cut, or melt materials.
MAGNETIC BEARING SYSTEM - Bearings developed from Space Shuttle designs support moving machinery without physical contact, permitting motion without friction or wear, and are now used in electric power generation, petroleum refining, machine tool operation, and natural gas pipelines.
ENGINE LUBRICANT - A NASA-developed plasma-sprayed coating is used to coat valves in a new, ten-inch-long, four-cylinder rotary engine, eliminating the need for lubricating the rotorcam, which has no crankshaft, flywheel, distributor, or water pump.
INTERACTIVE COMPUTER TRAINING - Known as Interactive Multimedia Training (IMT), originally developed to train astronauts and space operations personnel, now utilized by the commercial sector to train new employees and upgrade worker skills, using a computer system that engages all the senses, including text, video, animation, voice, sounds, and music.
HIGH-PRESSURE WATERSTRIPPING - Technology developed for preparing Space Shuttle solid rocket boosters first evolved into the U.S. Air Force's Large Aircraft Robotic Paint Stripping (LARPS) system, and now used in the commercial airline industry, where the waterjet processing reduces coating removal time by 90 percent, using only water at ultra-high pressures up to 55,000 psi.
ADVANCED WELDING TORCH - Based on the Variable Polarity Plasma Arc welding technology, a handheld torch originally developed for joining light alloys used in NASA's External Tank, is now used by major appliance manufacturers for sheet metal welding.
Other spinoffs in this area include: Gasoline vapor recovery, self-locking fasteners, machine tool software, laser wire stripper, lubricant coating process, wireless communications, engine coatings, and engine design.
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Public Safety - NASA Spinoffs
RADIATION HAZARD DETECTOR - NASA technology has made commercially available new, inexpensive, conveniently carried device for protection of people exposed to potentially dangerous levels of microwave radiation. Weighing only 4 ounces and about the size of a cigarette pack, it can be carried in a shirt pocket or clipped to a belt. Unit sounds an audible alarm when microwave radiation reaches a preset level.
EMERGENCY RESPONSE ROBOT - Remotely-operated robot reduces human injury levels by performing hazardous tasks that would otherwise be handled by humans.
PERSONAL ALARM SYSTEM - Pen-sized ultrasonic transmitter used by prison guards, teachers, the elderly, and disabled to call for help is based on space telemetry technology. Pen transmits a silent signal to receiver that will display the exact location of the emergency.
EMERGENCY RESCUE CUTTERS - Lightweight cutters for freeing accident victims from wreckage developed using NASA pyrotechnic technology.
FIREMAN'S AIR TANKS - Lighter-weight firefighter's air tanks have been developed. New back-pack system weighs only 20 lbs. for 30 minute air supply, 13 lbs. less than conventional firefighting tanks. They are pressurized at 4,500 psia (twice current tanks). A warning device tells the fireman when he or she is running out of air.
PERSONAL STORM WARNING SYSTEM - Lightning detector gives 30-minute warning to golfers, boaters, homeowners, business owners, and private pilots.
SELF-RIGHTING LIFE RAFT - Developed for the Apollo program, fully inflates in 12 seconds and protects lives during extremely adverse weather conditions with self-righting and gravity compensation features.
Other spinoffs in this area include: Storm warning services (Doppler radar), firefighters' radios, lead poison detection, fire detector, flame detector, corrosion protection coating, protective clothing, and robotic hands.
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Transportation - NASA Spinoffs
STUDLESS WINTER TIRES - Viking Lander parachute shroud material is adapted and used to manufacture radial tires, increasing the tire material's chainlike molecular structure to five times the strength of steel should increase tread life by 10,000 miles.
BETTER BRAKES - New, high-temperature composite space materials provide for better brake linings. Applications includes trucks, industrial equipment and passenger cars.
TOLLBOOTH PURIFICATION - A laminar airflow technique used in NASA clean rooms for contamination-free assembly of space equipment is used at tollbooths on bridges and turnpikes to decrease the toll collector's inhalation of exhaust fumes.
WEIGHT SAVING TECHNOLOGY - NASA research on composite materials is used to achieve a 30-percent weight reduction in a twin-turbine helicopter, resulting in a substantial increase in aircraft performance.
IMPROVED AIRCRAFT ENGINE - Multiple NASA developed technological advancements resulted in a cleaner, quieter, more economical commercial aircraft engine known as the high bypass turbofan, featuring a 10-percent reduction in fuel consumption, lower noise levels, and emission reductions of oxides of nitrogen, carbon monoxide, and unburned hydrocarbons.
ADVANCED LUBRICANTS - An environmental-friendly lubricant designed to support the Space Shuttle Mobile Launcher Platform led to the development of three commercial lubricants for railroad track maintenance, for electric power company corrosion prevention, and as a hydraulic fluid with an oxidation life of 10,000 hours.
ENERGY STORAGE SYSTEM - The Flywheel Energy Storage system, derived from two NASA-sponsored energy storage studies, is a chemical-free, mechanical battery that harnesses the energy of a rapidly spinning wheel and stores it as electricity with 50 times the capacity of a lead-acid battery, very useful for electric vehicles.
NEW WING DESIGN FOR CORPORATE JETS - NASA-developed computer programs resulted in an advanced, lighter, more aerodynamically-efficient new wing for Gulfstream business aircraft.
AIDS TO SCHOOL BUS DESIGN - Manufacturer uses three separate NASA-developed technologies originally developed for aviation and space use in their design and testing of a new school bus chassis. These technologies are a structural analysis computer program infrared stress measurement system, and a ride quality meter system.
Other spinoffs in this area include: Safer bridges, emission testing, airline wheelchairs, electric car, auto design, methane-powered vehicles, windshear prediction, and aircraft design analysis.
--
Personal cabin pressure altitude monitor to contribute to public aviation safety
Shuttle Technology to Benefit Patients on Earth
New, Wide-ranging Applications of Satelite Pictures
Neurolab Team To Discuss Results, Benefits
Nasa Research Helps Mold Better Products
Nasa Space Suit Gives Boy His First Day in the Sun
Flight Experiment Smoothes Flow Over Supersonic Wing
NASA Technology To Help Pilots Taxi More Efficiently
Fire Imaging Device for Firefighters
Benefits Derived from Manned Space Missions
Nasa's Innovative Device to Aid Knee Injury
Robotic Helicopter for Public Safety
European Satellite Telecommunications Improve Maritime Safety
Nasa Sensors Provide Safe Platform for Volcano Studies
Non-Polluting Methanol Fuel Cell for Zero-Emission Vehicles
Nasa Research in Space May Redesign Household Windows
Nasa Technology Creates Market for Recycled Milk Bottles
--
The Shuttle Radar Topography Mission set out to generate the most accurate topographical map of the Earth. The data recorded will enable engineers and scientists to develop safer navigation techniques and better communication systems.
Two girls who can not tolerate exposure to either the sun's strong ultraviolet light or even bright indoor lighting, each received a special UV protection suit that was developed from space-based technology.
A miniaturized ventricular-assist pump has been successfully implanted into several people. Initially called the NASA/DeBakey heart pump, it is based in part on technology used in space shuttle fuel pumps.
Winging their way into toy stores are Hasbro Aero Nerf Gliders, benefiting from NASA wind tunnel and aerodynamic expertise.
Properties of metal alloys studied for the space station program have sparked a new line of golf clubs. Shape memory metal gives the most seasoned golfer new control and feel.
BSR created blanket insulation kits based on NASA Space Shuttle Thermal Protection System materials and had the first products bear a seal from the U.S. Space Foundation indicating their space origin.
Based on award-winning NASA telerobotics software, VEVI4 is a powerful tool used to represent complex devices graphically in a 3-D environment. Depicted here is the Dante II vehicle during its descent into Mount Spurr, Alaska.
Building the Boeing 777 brought about the use of NASA innovations, from lightweight composite materials to the modern glass cockpit and aircraft control systems.
--
Re:I'm sure there'll be a lot of posts like mine (Score:2)
The AE's and EE's on Georgia Tech's campus were walking around like zombies, their dreams of space shattered like so many ceramic tiles. Fifteen years, and the pic on that CNN arty still gives me the creeps. Still brings the tears, too. I don't think we cried that day, though. Too much shock... and later, anger, when we found out Mr. Feynman had told them so.
Fifteen years, and NASA is a timid shadow of its former self. So is America, for that matter. There are stupid risks, and there are ones you have to take to get anywhere. But in the P-C era, it's not PC to take risks. Except the ones you never think about, like driving on the freeway... and so we kill thousands on thousands every year by doing stupid things with our automobiles, and no human being has cleared earth orbit since Nixon was in office.
*sigh*
But they're right, I don't remember where I was when Lennon was shot, nor Regan, nor when Elvis died... or even when Mt. St. Helen's blew. But I sure as hell remember what happened the day the space program died.
--
From now on, we live in a world where man has walked on the moon.
And it's not a miracle, we just decided to go.
-- Jim Lovell
History will remember the inhabitants of this century as the people who went from Kitty Hawk to the moon in 66 years, only to languish for the next 30 in low Earth orbit. At the core of the risk-free society is a self-indulgent failure of nerve.
-- Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin
Management (Score:2)
-- Jerry Mason, General Manager, Morton Thiokol, January 27, 1986.
Sometimes, management stupidity has consequences far beyond simply annoyances.
A view from home... (Score:2)
I'm dating myself here, but I was still in public grade school at the time. I remember being herded into another class room, where my whole grade (it was a small town) was assembled to watch the event on TV. After all, this was New Hampshire, and it was our very own Christa McAuliffe that was going up! Some people at the school had actually met her. We were pretty excited.
Until 73 seconds after liftoff.
I still remember, quite vividly, the picture on the TV as the Challenger disappeared in a giant ball of smoke and steam. I remember watching what was left of the solid rock boosters twist and veer away wildly. And I knew, almost instinctively, that those seven people were dead. There was no way someone could survive a ship disintegrating like that.
I can still hears the words of the news announcer in my ears: "At this time, we do not know what has happened, but obviously the Challenger has suffered a major malfunction."
A major malfunction.
And seven people dead.
All because some manager somewhere didn't want to disappoint everyone by holding the launch. People have asked me how I can use the term "manager" as a curse word. This is why.
Don't try to pin this on Bush.... (Score:2)
If you want to blame someone for NASA's tiny budget, blame Dan Goldin (NASA Administrator). It's about time Goldin took some responsibility for forcing NASA to operate on an ever-shrinking budget; whenever Congress started talking about budget cuts, Goldin always was happy to oblige them, sometimes even offering bigger cuts than they wanted. Plus he hates the "worm" logo and has tried to eradicate it.
Re:NASA Budget (Score:2)
Re:NASA Budget (Score:2)
I still don't understand why our country/government has a responsibility to feed parts of the world that can't fend for themselves. Granted, I give to charities to help poor conditions (mostly at home, but some abroad), and I am taken in with the "fight for our fellow man" as much as anyone, but it just doesn't make sense to make statements about starvation in other countries when we have problems here at home. I also don't consider it sacrificing human lives to make golfs clubs or come up with the new technologies. There are long term advantages to technologies, even though for some it may come too late. A lot of medical equipment wouldn't be possible without the research and funding in metalurgy and computing that was done by NASA and the defence industry.
Natural Selection can be societal, as well as physical. Whether or not the Republic of the USA is anywhere near the final step in that evolutionary chain is quite debatable, but on a smaller scale societies also go through this, too. It is wonderfully idealistic to think that we can help everyone to wonderful lives, even in areas of the world that have extremely high rates of various fatal diseases (i.e. HIV) and land that has trouble supporting basic food needs, but we live in a world of harsh realities. Many people have suffered throughout the course of humanity, and many more will. We can try, but we can't help them all.
Sucks, doesn't it?
--
You say that like it's news (Score:5)
How detailed and precise they are now?! They have always been that detailed and precise. There's a reason we have an expression comparing difficult things to "rocket science". Throwing several hundred tons of metal into orbit (or beyond) without enough gas to recover from a gross error, in situations where you get it right the first time, or else (at best) lose years of research an planning, or (at worst) lose the lives of the crew of a manned flight, is amongst the most difficult feats of engineering imagineable.
What NASA has now is management too scared of being raked over the coals again for being criminally stupid. Go reread accounts of the Challenger investigation... the engineering was fine. That was a political and managerial fuckup of biblical proportions--"screw the freezing temperatures and the unknowns, we want that ship up there when Gipper gives his State of the Union address."
--
I'm sure there'll be a lot of posts like mine (Score:4)
When I got to school, one of my friends told me about it, and I thought he was joking. He was allways making fun of me for liking science so much.
When school started, the principal made the annoucement about the explosion, and we had a moment of silence for the astronuats and thier families.
When we got to science class, we went to the library to watch the launch, then we talked about "when sience goes wrong".
I think this is when my childhood dream of being an astronaut died.
I used to laugh at my parents, when they said they could remember where they were when Kennedy was shot. I don't anymore.
Multiple Choice Test. (Score:2)
(1) Colonize the universe.
(2) Hang out on Slashdot and write perl scripts until the sun goes nova and all human history and culture is erased from the cosmic record.
Pick one.
:M
I was in the 4th grade... (Score:2)
That was the first day I swore in public, the first major fight I got in at school, the first time I was *suspended* from school, and the day I decided that New Yorkers were scum all rolled into one.
(I've since met some nice and New Yorkers decided that mabye I was hasty to judge all new yorkers as a whole, but that day shaped my opinion of them for years)
I was in the 4th grade at Hobe Sound Elementary school in Martin County, Florida... about 100 miles or so south of the cape. As always, we were dismissed from class to the playground to watch the shuttle go up...
Only THIS time was particularly special because there was a *teacher* on board! And we were going to get lessons FROM SPACE!!! (via cable TV of course).
So there I was, two minutes into the launch when it blew up. I had seen a couple other launches from the cape go boom before, so when I saw it, I knew what happened. I was staring in horrification... ready to throw up. Like some others mave mentioned here... my childhood dreams of becoming an astronaut going up in vapour with the Challenger.
Then the new kid in class; the asshole new yorker; starts jumping for joy!?!?! He was like "wooHoo... YES!!! Yea!!!" My horror turned to sheer hatred. I turned to him, yelled "you SHITFACE", and punched him right in the side of the head. And thus began my first real schoolyard fight.
It eventually took three teachers to pull me off that SOB: one to pull me back by the torso, and two to pull my arms out of the chokehold I had the asshole in.
I was sent home, and thus began my first suspension. Two whole days off of school... As if I could enjoy it after what had just happened to the Space Shuttle. (How times are different, eh? These days, if a 4th grader had done the same, they'd prolly try him as an adult for attempted murder)
john
Resistance is NOT futile!!!
Haiku:
I am not a drone.
Remove the collective if
Re:I'm sure there'll be a lot of posts like mine (Score:2)
I was at work. All of a sudden, some guy came into my office and told me the shuttle blew up. I thought he was shitting me.
We were in a classified area, and weren't allowed to have radios. There were a hell of a lot of security violations that day, as we had radios on all over the place.
That night, I rented The Space Movie [imdb.com], and stared at it in a daze over and over until I fell asleep.
Re:Earning it's keep (Score:2)
Re:Moderators on $2 CRACK (Score:2)
Oh I see. You know everything about me.
I give money to help the homeless, tutor people for free, tip heavily, etc. Basically the things that are within my power - I do to help someone have just a tad better life. THOSE are the important things in [my] life.
Hey, if people want to spend THEIR money, on collecting rocks from another planet, I can appreciate their sacrifice for the betterment of human knowledge, but how dare someone else force ME to spend my money when I hold OTHER beliefs to be a better investment in our future.
Like I said, the moderators are on crack.
People missing the POINT (Score:2)
I never said charities could do everything the government does. I just believe in not giving money to certain government operations, that can be better spent elsewhere.
> putting dollars where the wealthy find it trendy to put them
So giving of your time and money to help those less fortunate is considered trendy?! Whoa! Guess I've been "trendy" all my life then!
> instead of where they're actually needed
Yah, like spending money collecting more useless rocks instead of on helping *people* that actually need it [tongue in cheek.]
The POINT is, some people like having their money spent on cosmology. Others think it is a waste of their money (and should be able to opt out.) Some guy gets marked as flamebait because he stated he was in the 2nd category. I was just agreeing with him.
God help us all, if we can't discuss an unpopular opinion rationally. But hey, this is
Engineering Ethics (Score:2)
According to testimony by Kilminster and Boisjoly, Mason finally turned to Bob Lund and said, "Take off your engineering hat and put on your management hat."
PS: I made up some plaques and managed to get Ben Bova to present them, as the first official public act of the newly formed National Space Society, to the 4 leading Morton Thiokol engineers who steadfastly opposed the launch of the Challenger. Too bad NSS turned into such a NASA cheerleading organization.
Re:I'm sure there'll be a lot of posts like mine (Score:2)
---
Re:NASA Budget (Score:2)
Somehow I believe that 20 years ago you would have complained that your tax money was going to fund the backbone of the Internet as well, when the NSF had it and was building it for "experimentation."
Remember.. it is programs like the NSF and NASA that give us these things.. if they werent doing it, no-one else would. No single private orginization has the funds or the contracting abilities to get this stuff done, so it *has* to be subsidized.
Sorry.. but I disagree with a lot of government appropriations, but this is one that has real rewards for us in everyday life. (satellite TV?)
Maeryk
Re:"Crit-One-R" (Score:2)
I was pointing out that astronauts are *aware* of the risk.. and they accept it.. however, there is "unforseen" risk, and then there is gross negligence.. Challenger was gross negligence.
The Russians have only lost 10 cosmonauts, but have lost a *hell* of a lot more equipment. (and dont forget, that is ten that we *know* of.. there may have been more.. and we may never know).
Maeryk
Re:Name TWO crew members (Score:2)
McNair, Scobbe, Onizuka, MaCauliffe, Resnick, I want to say Hamilton, but I dont think its right.
Maeryk
Useless SPace Program. (Score:2)
IT is far more than just landing on Mars or walking on the moon..
link is <A HREF="http://www.thespaceplace.com/nasa/spinoffs.
Read it.
Maeryk
Re:NASA Budget (Score:2)
I was thinking Teflon, but somewhere the neurons misfired, and typed Titanium.
Maeryk.
Re:NASA Budget (Score:2)
It has a lot to do with it.. before you demand the removal of something that has the capability (and has) of improving the quality of life for millions of people.. (mammograms? Angioplasty? Tang?) for the welfare of considerably fewer starving people who will be starving again the day the food runs out, or who will be under a different "bad" government three years after we bail them out of this one, give from yourself. Surely *your* money and *your* happiness is unimportant compared to those poor pitiful starving people, political dissidents, and prisoners on death row.
Changing a political system means a lot more than sitting there saying "yeah.. thats unfair". lot of people sacrifice, go to jail, get killed, and end up homeless or worse every year to "change a political system".
Yammering on
As far as the foreign aid thing, no.. we are not the only one.. but we are by far the *largest* one.. whether it be direct contributions, military deployments, or money and aid handed out through the UN. When California broke a few years ago, how many people did you see here from other countrys helping dig out? Now that the electricity is going out in Cali (why does everything happen to cali?) how many foreign countries stepped in to pump money in to the problem?
Maeryk
Re:"Crit-One-R" (Score:3)
On the ground, the redundancy NASA uses is *scary*. However, on the orbiter, you are facing some very solid scientific principles that are set in stone. One is the weight to launch ratio.. the Saturn 5 was the largest thing to ever move.. and it was right down to the pound.. as you add more equipment, cables, backup machines, HDD's, you name it you add more weight. More weight means more fuel. More fuel means more size. More size means more fuel. It becomes an exponential expansion that at some point kills the ability to move.
Larry Niven goes into this pretty heavily in "Playgrounds of the Mind" and describes *why* once you get to Dyson Spheres, Ringworlds, or Generation Ships (heinleins variant) you are looking at Nuclear or Solar (radiation ram-scoops or flare-riders) due to the limitations of conventional energy ships.
basically, the SPace Program is as safe as it can be. The fact that we have *never* lost a ship in space, and that we have lost 7 on the challenger and 3 in apollo ground fires, means we have one *hell* of a safety record, one that shines compared to any other industry. Compare ours with the Russian or Chinese and you will see what I mean.
basically, Astronauts *know* it is risky, and they accept this.. the problem with the Challenger misfortune was that it *was* within their control. And the instruction booklet *FROM* morton thiokol explaining the O-ring seals specifically *states* that the O0rings may not work in cold temperatures. *THAT* was the basis of the suit...
bowing to media pressure is a bad thing, especially when 7 peoples lives are on the line.
Anyway.. I hope that sort of answered your concern.
maeryk
Re:NASA is a wasteful boondoggle (Score:3)
Like programmable pacemakers? Breast exams? Ultrasound? thank NASA.
http://www.thespaceplace.com/nasa/spinoffs.html
Maeryk
Re:NASA Budget (Score:4)
Read a few articles on what the space program has done *for* the people here on earth before you go bashing it, please.
A few of the things developed for the Space program that you use *every* day..
titanium
high impact plastics
gold plated connectors
anti-fog wipes and products for glasses/etc
growth methods for plants that produce higher yields/lower growing space
new energy technologies (solar, specifically)
advances in metallurgy *other* than titanium.
The space program has a *huge* impact on daily life, that most people do not realize. There used to be a good magazine called "spinoff" that listed these things, why they were developed, and their use in every day life.
That is basically like saying "we should stop gaming development until we get world hunger stopped". gaming drives, in a lot of ways, the bigger faster better development boom we have had in microelectronics lately. The space program is the same way. And when NASA comes up with new technology, it sells liscences to it to help pay for itself. And remember, a lot of those missions also carry corporate payloads, which also defrays the cost of the missions. Without Nasa, you would *not* have your nifty satellite TV, Satellite Internet, etc etc.
Maeryk
Re:This is the (Score:2)
Yes, it is the cry of the Government-Funded Parasite, but sometimes its true! Its also the Cry of the under-funded project.
You cant treat a government agency the way you would a child. You cant say "Do your all homework correctly, then you can have some ice cream.".
The individual child will think "The only way to get ice-cream is to do my homework right. Therefor I must shut off the tv and concentrate on homework."
But the government agency is full of individuals who all think "Everyone else is lazy! They wont do the homework in time! Theres nothing I can do about that! Theres going to be less ice-cream at lunch today! Ive got do something to make sure Im not one of the ones going hungry!"
Withholding the childs ice-cream will make him realize that his parents arent fooling around, and if he didnt do it this time hell certainly do his homework next time. But withholding the Agencys ice-cream just weeds out the employees who arent good at covering their ass and playing the office politics.
That said, I dont know what a good solution to good solution to NASAs problems. But Im prety sure itll involve tax-payer dolars. And Im sure cutting the budget until results improve is a bad idea and would probably result in the scuttling of the whole project.
-Andy
Re:Earning it's keep (Score:2)
Absolutely not. Id want more then one set of data on the region before I committed to landing anywhere.
I certainly wouldnt say "Well, Since Im going to Mars next year, Id better start thinking about mapping the surface, and discovering what the environment is like."
-Andy
G do I remember this! (Score:2)
Now, the whole crew is in heaven approving of NASA's current decisions.
We CAN'T be anything like we were back during Apollo and the early shuttle days. Even if there's a snowball's chance in you know where of something happening, if there's any chance of a critical failure resuliting in the loss of crew and craft, we should take it seriously. I applaud NASA for it's current efforts.
What CAN be done now, is we can finally get around to designing a craft that can take off in adverse conditions safely. Can it be done? I don't know. Maybe. Should it be done? If it's possible, we should do it. Then, maybe, we can resume a schedule similar to what we had back in the eighties of a launch a month.
So now they have the opposite problem... (Score:2)
And we should be back on the moon, for crying out loud.
Re:"Crit-One-R" (Score:2)
Are the two wires: in different conduits, powered from different supplies... That was kind of the point: wires shouldn't be failing at that rate. If your servers keep crashing, you don't buy another redundant one in a quality operation - you fix the problem.
"Don't-go" fever caused mars orbiter to miss! (Score:3)
They knew about this error before it was too late, and tried to get the operations people to do a burn to correct its course. However, the operations folks refused because they were worried that it would screw up their schedule (the orbiter was still barely within tolerances). So they went for it and missed.
There are plenty of things wrong with the way NASA does things..
Re: Challenger (Score:2)
I remember perhaps too well the day Challenger blew. I had a meeting to prepare for lab that afternoon, and the boss told me that Challenger had blown up. I thought he was joking. I think everyone who heard about it by word of mouth had a hard time believing it until they saw TV footage.
I was a teaching assistant for a freshman chemistry lab, and spent more of my time that day answering questions about hydrogen/oxygen reactions than the subject planned for the day. (Oh, and getting questions about why a public school teacher was on something that dangerous wasn't fun either.)
A generation that had no space disasters finally had one. Instead of a run to the store, it was again a deadly serious business, and still is from what I can tell. Strangely enough, despite happening during the Reagan administration, the recognition of danger did not result in the removal of women from the space program.
Manned space flight isn't about science -- that gets done best with unmanned probes. The fact is that some of us want to go into that dangerous situation, and a bunch of us want those people to do it. I just hope it doesn't go back to where people are making "business decisions" when it isn't their pink little asses on the line.
There is a reason that just about every MBA program studies the decision making that led up to the Challenger disaster. Perhaps the benefit of that lesson won't be restricted to NASA. One can only hope.
Re:Odds... (Score:2)
I think the point of the report was that while to a statistician the probabilities are good, in reality we have to take into account that whatever caused the first wire to deteriorate would probably cause the second one to deteriorate too.
So the real chance of a system and it's redundant pair failing can be much higher if you never investigate why the first one failed, and whether that same condition applies to it's pair.
Re:Multiple Choice Test. (Score:2)
Re:Multiple Choice Test. (Score:2)
There are good reasons for wings (Score:2)
o-ring failure & info design. (Score:2)
Hindsight is 20/20, but it's a fascinating read... any /.er with an interest in design or gui should read Tufte's books... bad design can kill!
nasa budget (Score:2)
If they had any balls they would of junked that thing and went with single use launch vehicles wich would save the America public a ton of money. Nasa is about politics, not science.
Re:NASA Budget (Score:3)
This is a common misperception about the way the government spending works. It isn't as if there is a large pool of money, and the government takes a percentage of it for starving children (insert deserving cause, etc..)
The way it works, is that there are certain amounts that the US public feels is necessary to spend on certain things. These amounts are relatively independent of each other. In that, we will spend $X on starving children weather or not there is a budget surplus or not.
It is also incredibly ignorant to think NASA technology is all about "fucking up other planets." There is an incredible amount of NASA technology incorporated into everyone's daily life. In short: When engineers have to design systems for more hostile environments (space) they can incorporate that technology to make systems for less hostile environments (earth) better.
for more information from NASA, click here [nasa.gov]
or type http://www.nasa.gov/qanda/why_nasa.html#whyexplor
---Lane
Did I just fall into a trap?
The 20-40 yr old's Kennedy (Score:3)
---Where was I? I had just landed a job a Caldor's making $7.75 and hour, I was quite certain it would be the last job I would ever hold. College? I was making 16K a year!
---I remember hanging out in the TV department watching it go up and hearing the unitiated ooh and aww over how pretty the launch was. I stood behind them muttering, "That ain't right... That's not what it looks like."
---I don't remember the exact phrase but I remember the tone from the control announcer. It was like nothing out of the ordinary happened. It was like, "We have a system failure."
---I remember thinking that there was no system failure there was some dead people and one of them was a school teacher who didn't need to be dead. My Advanced English (whatever that is) teacher Mr. Posner was the alternate. I went and saw him weeks later and he was still visibly upset. "First time I was glad someone was better than me, my God why did this happen?"
---I enrolled at the Community College the next Friday. I decided I was going to be a Journalist based on my theroy that the government set this up to glamorize the program.
The Challenger and why we need to keep going... (Score:2)
I was really caught up in the "teacher in space" idea for two reasons. First, I thought that some day I would have a chance at going into space even though I would not be an astronaut. (I wanted to take over third base from Mike Schmidt at the time) Lastly, and more real, was that my father had applied for it.
He is a science teacher in a junior high and he REALLY wanted to go. It had been his childhood dream, of sorts, to travel into space and back. He never really had a chance, though. The PR people was sure to pick a woman so it was just a question of ethnicity. I even remember my Dad saying something to that effect at the time.
Still, shortly after the "major malfunction" I couldn't help but think that it could have been Dad. I remember Mom and I just flipping from channel to channel and seeing what each news person had to say. My Dad even taped most of the news shows when he got home.
NASA has done a wonderful job. Considering what it had to do, send men out into space on rockets and get them back alive, and the complications of technology and monetary limitations I am surprised that we did not lose more people and missions. Sure, the Mars failures could have been avoided, but when you ride a motorcycle it's not a question of IF you will fall off, but WHEN you will fall off.
NASA has a record which give the illusion that this sort of stuff is routine and there are not many risks involved. Well, there are plenty of risks. Risks that need to be taken. Challenges that need to be met. We must continue to explore. We must continue to discover. We are pretty much done with exploration and discovery here on the surface of the Earth, save the deep ocean and the few remaining wildernesses. Our wanderlust has no direction to go except to the stars. If we can take these risks now, then we will be paving the way for our future. There are things out there that we need to see, and places have to go. Not for the present, but for the future. Imagine if we had never taken to the sea or dared to fly.
Let us dare to travel to the stars.
Re:Down with NASA (Score:2)
If NASA had been in charge of exploring the Atlantic Ocean in the 1400s - 1500s, they'd still be taking soundings off the Azores to make sure they wouldn't run into something unexpected.
In order to explore, you must take risks.
If we want to "explore space", we need an outfit that will do it (or at least get out of the way). NASA puts bureaucratic arse-covering above exploration.
--
The full Challenger story (Score:2)
It helps explain the article featured on Slashdot, showing how management at NASA allowed political pressures to override from their engineers. It's possible that NASA has leaned back too far the other way, into over-cautiousness, but it's understandable.
UK readers (Score:3)
http://www.blitzbasic.com/
Re:possibly silly theory: (Score:2)
I should point out the there have been hundreds of O-rings to survive such conditions, if not thousands after the rigorous performance testing that is involved
:)Fudboy
Re:Bzzt! Sorry, you're wrong. (Score:2)
Re:Multiple Choice Test. (Score:2)
Re:NASA Budget (Score:2)
Re:Multiple Choice Test. (Score:2)
Re:NASA Budget = good (Score:2)
Odds... (Score:2)
The article mentioned 4 problems in a bundle of 6056 wires. That's 1 in 1514.
Assuming there's actually 3028 redundant pairs, the chances of hitting one of the redundant wires of the one you've hit before is 3 in 6055.
So the odds of hitting a redundant pair is 1 in 5,238,440.
-S
Re:I'm sure there'll be a lot of posts like mine (Score:2)
So while hanging around with my friends and waiting for one of their moms to pick us up and take us home, I said "I'm going to go home and watch the space shuttle blow up. It's bound to happen sooner or later.". I don't know what possessed me to say that.... maybe because I knew that Murphy's Laws eventually catch up to everybody and everything.
And of course we all know what happened. That I'd predicted it hours before was the subject of much conversation the next day, and of course I felt like a complete ass for not taking the lives of the astronauts more seriously the day before.
And sadly this will happen again. Eventually. Maybe not with a shuttle... maybe on some other mission. But this is outrageously complex engineering. There will be mistakes. And despite our best efforts, it will eventually cost lives again. Atheletes can be killed in competition. Race car drivers can be killed on the track. You might get hit by a bus on your way to work tomorrow. But the key is to learn from our mistakes and keep going.
-S
Link to Feynman report (Score:5)
see http://www.ralentz.com/old/space/feynman-report.h
or
http://www.fotuva.org/feynman/challenger-appendix
Re:You say that like it's news (Score:2)
Quiz time: Who was president in 1986, when the Shuttle bew up?
a. Bush b. Reagan c. Who care's I'm not an American or d. The Troll who posted this note.
That's right kiddies, it's B. Reagan. (not Bush).
Quiz time: How how often was a Space shuttle being launched in 1985?
a. What's a shuttle? b. about once a month c. who cares i'm not an american or d. fuck you troll
That's right about once a month. Look, troll you say it was political pressure, well that political pressure affected the previous year's activities of Nasa, they were using both Shuttle pads with Shuttles on Both of them at the same time for launches that were only weeks apart. (I remeber going out to Playlinda beach, riding right past this, yes I was a local) This along with a full load of unmanned rockets going off. They were making a LOT of mistakes a very LONG time. Maybe Reagan told them to, maybe he didn't. The fact still remains the Challenger should NOT have been launched that day and everybody knew it.
Re:You say that like it's news (Score:3)
I was standing on the Indian River right across from Kennedy Space Center, you can clearly see both of the lauch pads and the VAB from there, on Jan 28, 1986. I can tell you this, everyone around thought the flight would be canceled. It was just too cold, there was ice hanging on the orange trees all over Central Florida (they water the tress to insulate them). My mother, who was at work at the time, said when she saw the shuttle go up, a co-worker put the flag at half-staff before it blew up. It didn't "look" right.
My point, only an utter idiot would have launched that shuttle on that day. Record freezing temps combined with the face they had pushed thier flight schedule to insane levels with two shuttles on 29a+b at the same time just lead straight to diaster.
The difference between the Nasa of then and the Nasa of now, is that Nasa now has common sense, the Nasa of then didn't. But, keep in mind that Nasa beleives there is a significant chance they will loose someone building the ISS, so it's not over yet.
Re:I'm a local...so I must know... (Score:3)
Political pressuse is NOT gone, it's just being dealt with in a different way. Take the ISS, for example, Nasa is going to do a amazing amount of space walks to get that thing up to specs (iirc 100) in a very short period of time. Nasa is also persueing a very agressive stance on launching (similiar to the state of the shuttle program in 1985). They also are willing to scrap missions over the most simple of things. That's the difference. Nasa's unwillingness to concern itself with such matters in Jan 1986 resulted in the Challenger exploding. Back then, Reagan wanted to promote the "Star Wars" program and the US's "Space might", today Clinton wants to promote the co-operation of several states for a peacful space program. Both are political agenda's, both require a very agressive Space Program. Except today, Nasa gets less money for more missions and does NOT loose people in space. Because they care now. To blame pressure on the repeated mistakes made by Nasa officials in the mid 80's is unreasonable, they made thier choices. Fortunately, today they don't make those choices anymore. They already lost one Shuttle, I doubt they want that to happen again.
On Jan 28 1986 Nasa lauched in conditions that no reasonable person would and it resulted in the death of all those aboard Challenger. You live in Titusville, you remeber how cold it was that mourning? I do, I was standing on the shore of the Indian River, my father took me out of school that day, so i could watch the first civilian go into space. He almost didn't because he knew it was unreasonable to launch the Shuttle that mourning. Everybody did.
Btw, the origional poster was not the person who refered to Bush.
I'm a local...so I must know... (Score:2)
The exec were wrong. No argument. But to ignore the political pressure is ALSO WRONG .
You'll notice that there was a COMPLETELY different attitude when Clinton decided to see the night shuttle launch...and not just on the NASA exec side.
BTW: if you had bothered to read the original poster...you'll notice that he actually KNEW that Reagan was President at the time of the explosion. He was making references to possible pressure that might be applied by President-Elect Bush. (And frankly speaking, your attitudes towards the cause of the explosion are likely to bring about a return of those political pressures - and more accidents.)
Re:Odds... (Score:2)
The four bad connectors were actually found. "Acctually" translates to 100%. So the question is what is the chance of two of these four occuring at the same pair:
chance of the second fault to occur at the pair to which the first belonged: 4 in 6055 = ~ 1 in 1514
chance of third to occur at the pair of first or second: ~ 1 in 1514
chance of four to occur at the pair of first second or third: ~1 in 1514
Which adds up to 3 in 1514 = 1 in 504! A snowball in Hell?
Re:NASA Budget (Score:3)
Dude, you forgot Tang(TM) [kraftfoods.com].
How could you forget Tang(TM) [kraftfoods.com], arguably the beverage with the most extreme orange taste and color known to humankind?
information wants to be expensive...nothing is so valuable as the right information at the right time.
NASA vs. Problems in the Real World (Score:3)
Well.
First, your starting assumption is faulty. We're never going to "solve all of our real problems" whether we go into space or not. Poverty has been around for thousands of years, and there'll be homeless people and those who get smashed down by circumstance on the first Mars base, or in New New York in the year 3001. Cure diseases instead of spending money on space exploration? How much money did we put into AIDS research in the 1960's? The answer is none, since AIDS didn't exist as a human disease then, and if we insist on spending every available dollar on disease research, that's all we'll ever spend our dollars on. You ask how many children could be fed by the cost of one space vehicle launch. I ask in reply, how many chidren could have been fed by the money poured into automotive development, or the cosmetics industry?
Second, your logical extension is faulty. What is it exactly that blinds you (and all of the others who like to make this argument) to the possibility that the cure for cancer is a chemical that synthesizes only in microgravity? Or that the next clean power supply can't be discovered by scientists trying to figure out how to make a sustainable Moon base? Science at its core is dicovery, and the farther we range from what we know, the more likely it is that we'll dicover something new. Some of the things we need to learn and do for space exploration could (and very often do) produce huge benefits for life here on Earth. Without space exploration, for example, there'd be no satellites. These wondrous little devices do everything from geological surveys and weather mapping to communications. Next time you say that we're wasting money on space travel, try telling that to the family who are still alive because of an accurate forcast for a hurricane path, or the person whose 911 call went through.
Pure science is not and cannot be forced. I agree that we shouldn't throw all of our money into space exploration, but then neither should we pull all of our money away from space exploration. The solution to the problems right next door may very well be "out there."
Virg
Finally, rationality (Score:2)
--
MailOne [openone.com]
Down with NASA (Score:3)
Re: Russian record (Score:2)
Russians lost 4 during flights and 1 in Apollo 1-like oxygen fire [astronautix.com].
Technically, they lost no manned ships in space (one smashed in the ground [astronautix.com], and one returned intact [astronautix.com] with 3 dead bodies).
Two launch aborts resulted in no casualties: Soyuz 18-1 [astronautix.com], Soyuz T-10-1 [astronautix.com].
There were a number of ground crew casualties during ICBM [astronautix.com] and equipment [friends-partners.org] testing [friends-partners.org]; I don't think this counts as manned flights casualties, does it?
This is tough for Americans to swallow. So, there are urban legends about Soviet secret space accidents. So far nothing was confirmed [friends-partners.org]. If you have any hard facts, let me know.
Earning it's keep (Score:2)
How about getting more informed before building an opinion? The probe smashed into Mars because of the different measurement units between the US and european space agencies. It was a collaborative effort and the group responsible for checking calculations missed converting measurement units in one of their formulas.
Almost every mission of the last 15 years has been successful. You apparently only pay attention to the sparse few that fail.
Also, that "rediculous little robot" was sent partly to scan the surface for the soft spot that your ass would be landing on if you were fortunate enough to ever go to Mars. Let's skip the rediculous photography and just drop you there and see where your head cracks open.
Re:Finally, rationality (Score:3)
I was born in the 70's, but even I know about the rockets from the 60's which had a capsule that dropped into the ocean, was retreived, and reused. Now where do you think the satellite that brings you your cable TV stations would fit in that little capsule? On the lap of one of the astronauts? They can just hold it out the window when they get there and then drop back down.
The current shuttle is a multi-purpose, partly re-usable vehicle. Disgustingly expensive, but invented in the 70's. Let's see your plans for a better, more efficient, and less costly model using 1975 technology.
Engineers and Management (Score:2)
If you read the accounts, you find the engineering was not fine, the Challenger died because of faulty engineering. Not as urban legend has it, only because of out of envelope operations forced by management.
NASA and Morton-Thiokol engineers own studies show significant O-ring erosion at temperatures well above those seen by Challenger. The specification amounted to no erosion at all. Yes, managment failed in launching that morning, but they only added stress on top of an already faulty system. The engineers have a share of the blame as well. (I know this view will be unpopular, but facts are facts.)